She didn't see that coming....

Promise she came up smiling!

Our Pad - Isla's Bedroom

Mel and Richard left yesterday then we spent the afternoon with Grandma and Papa Terry. Today we started to get a bit more settled in, the first room to get sorted was obviously Isla's "big girl" room.

She climbed out of her cot while we were in England in April, since then she has been sleeping in a small tent so we did not have to worry about her escape. Her new start in the "big bed" was further delayed by the loss of the screws for the lovely bed we shipped from Japan, plus the steady stream of guests who needed to sleep in her room. We collected the last box from the garage in Langley and stashed in one of my handbags were the screws - hurray!

We found the little white drawers in a storage room downstairs, we have a bit of an Isla theme going on with two pictures and some bunting with her name on. You can see her deck outside. It gets the afternoon sun and has a nice view of the harbour - the fences are high so she will be able to go out there and play safely even though it is on the 4th floor.

We have not figured out how to make her stay in the bed all night yet - but I am sure it will come! New bedroom modelled by Isla.

A quickie...

I must say - this place is FULL of English people. Today I went to yoga in the market, then to Costco and I think 50% of the people I heard speaking had English accents. Amazing.

A little picture of Isla watching Charlie and Lola in her house made out of the BBQ box. I have big plans for it - watch this space!

Pender Harbour

Charlie's family have a cabin at Pender Harbour on the Sunshine Coast. We have already been up there three times, hanging out with Grandma and Papa Terry, doing some swimming and a few hikes. And we have another trip planned for a few weeks time.

We have to drive about half an hour to the ferry terminal, then take a 35 minute ferry, then drive for an hour to get there. It is actually on the mainland here, but there is no road there. The ferry ride is really pretty when the sun is out and the drive up is partly on the coast.

Jump!

Dive!

Chilling on the water - the cabin is the second from the right.

Mel, Richard, Charlie and Isla soaking up the sun

At the top of Mount Daniel - straight up all the way. Hard work, worth it for the amazing view.

Helping

Isla "helping" with the birthday cake test run.

Vancouver so far

I must apologise for the lack of posts, since we arrived in Canada we have been spending time at Charlie's family cabin, looking for a new place and a car, watching baseball in Seattle and showing 4 sets of visitors around. Non-stop!

We now have a place, a car, a brief respite from the visitors (we love it really) and a few days at home to catch up and unpack.

Our place is an apartment on False Creek, check it out here.

Close to the action, it is a 2 bed apartment with a couple of decks which have view of downtown and some landscaped gardens. I will post some pictures when we have some furniture and have unpacked a bit more.

We are within walking distance of two great parks for Isla, one is a water park in the summer then a bouncy castle park in the winter. We can also walk to Granville Island with a great farmers market, and a nice yoga studio. We can take a bus, or more excitingly a seabus, to get around, there is also a cycle path on the seawall so we have been making use of the wonderful weather and cycling or walking as much as possible.

Isla and I have been hanging out with Patricia and Noah as much as possible and they have introduced us to some new people and some great kids groups - for my friends in Japan, they are pretty similar except I can understand what everyone is saying!

Some pics below of the park just outside our building. And of course my favourite 2 YEAR OLD park goer (more on the party of the year later).

Goodbye RV....

After the Dunes we drove through the rest of Oregon and Washington pretty quickly, the fog descended and it began to rain - it felt like a good time to be stopping. We stayed at Charlie's cousin Jason's place near Seattle for the night and cleaned the RV before we had to return it.

Lynn and Terry very kindly came down to collect us, it was kind of sad to say goodbye to our little van - this really was the trip of a lifetime, but at the same time we were ready for a break from each other and a proper bed! I think after we settle into our new home and have a bit of time to reflect on it we will realise just how amazing it was and will wish we were back there.

Oregon Dunes

We had a long day driving and no plans on where to spend the night, we picked this National Park as it was a long way to the next one and we wanted to relax. Turned out to be a good choice, white sand dunes on the side of a warm blue lake with lots of people attempting to surf or sledge down them. Pretty, windblown and very unexpected.